Using hormones to treat cancer

Prostate cancer is a global health challenge. Many patients with prostate cancer have positive outcomes, but some patients develop aggressive tumours that require ongoing treatment. Tumours eventually develop drug resistance to currently available treatments, so new therapeutic options are required. Current clinical trials are testing a new approach where patients are given monthly injections of testosterone. So far, the results are promising, but some tumours are more sensitive to this treatment than others. Our goal is to increase the effectiveness of hormone treatments so that more patients benefit from them. These studies use patient-derived models, such as xenografts and 3D cultures of organoids, to compare the features of sensitive and resistant tumours and measure their responses to candidate drug treatments. Other techniques may include immunohistochemistry, quantitative PCR and bioinformatics. We do this work in collaboration with other scientists, clinicians and patient advocates.